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Our daughter has epilepsy. She is one of the fortunate ones and has not had a seizure in decades. Not all are so fortunate.

About 1 percent to 2 percent of any population has epilepsy, and that is a surprising number. Far more people have this condition than you would expect. It takes many forms, from staring into space for a few minutes to falling to the ground. Its genesis is mostly elusive, its management changes with age and conditions.

A large range of drugs and combinations of drugs will control about 75 percent of the seizures, and these people can lead a normal life. This is not always the case.

Others have seizures that can be only partially controlled or not controlled at all. This is a tragedy, because each seizure has the ability to steal function from the brain. Altered brain function casts a pall on a child and their family. This is scary stuff.

Reliable scientific studies show that one particular strain of marijuana may greatly help control seizures in some children. This strain has not been adequately studied in adults, but the science is on-going. Unfortunately this breakthrough for epilepsy treatment is getting tangled up in the larger marijuana legalization issue.

I know that some elected officials worry about marijuana intoxication. I doubt that the whole Colorado pot love-in is about to happen in Florida.

How many people are impaired by perfectly legal prescribed drugs? We all know the answer to this. But for Pete’s sake, why pit helping a child who could sustain brain damage against the intoxication issue?

I don’t necessarily disagree with Attorney General Pam Bondi; this issue may not rise to the level of a constitutional amendment. I am arguing for the relief of suffering children.

Popular medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta spent a year traveling to pot farms and hospitals, both in America and abroad, where he studied the benefits of medical marijuana. He shocked his viewers when he said, “I am here to apologize. ... I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough until now.”

Stephanie Steinberg at U.S. News & World Report writes that in 1970 “for marijuana to be classified as a schedule 1 substance ‘until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue.’ Forty-five years later, the majority of those studies were never completed, Gupta says, and the status hasn't changed. He points out that only 6 percent of marijuana studies in the United States have investigated the healing qualities of the drug, while the rest have focused on the harmful impact.”

Let us get out heads out of the sand and fund these studies. In the meantime, allow marijuana use when studies indicate it can reduce seizures.

I am a volunteer for epilepsy services. Over the last 20 years I have talked to many weeping parents who cannot get their arms around this disorder. As a mother, I have held my own child in my arms as she seized. Please allow us to use every available resource to fight back when these brain storms have our children in their grip.